Anywhere On This Road
by Meredith Bronwen Mallory
Summary: In a universe perhaps three standard deviations from Prime, a single highly secret ritual has survived Surak's Reform to subtly impact the galaxy, even down to Federation by-laws. When a young Spock discovers the most sacred of connections, all Winona Kirk knows is that the Vulcans want her son. No Kirk ever gives up without a fight.


**Anywhere On This Road 1/?**  
by _Meredith Bronwen Mallory_ (garnettrees)  
======================================================

_My heart is breaking_  
_I cannot sleep_  
_I love a man_  
_who's afraid of me._  
_He believes if he does not_  
_stand guard with a knife,_  
_I will make him my slave for_  
_the rest of his life._  
-"Anywhere on This Road" by Lhasa

* * *

The Forge is Eternal.

The vast, unforgiving expanse sprawls beyond the jagged mountains which guard its periphery, an almost circular depression so massive it seems without end. Flat as the pavilion before any temple, its wind-worn rocks are battered and subjugated, their infrequent protrusions quickly lost amidst the incarnadine horizon and the limitations of organic visual perception. Red sand, like the detritus of rust from the machinery of time itself, has collected here over eons untold. Since the Beginning, Surak says- a beginning which was preceded, the great teacher adds in one of his few recorded contradictory statements, by Time Out of Mind.

Here the ambitions of warlords and kings have been shattered; here the enemies of Tu-Surak fled and slew one another with their passions and infighting even before the desert could devour them. Whole tribes- lost, disoriented by the Forge's unpredictable simooms- perished of thirst in attempted crossings, their bones scoured clean by winds until at last these too were worn away into particulate now indifferently mixed with the native granular silicate.

Once, every five _tevun_, a caravan of modern Vulcans makes a pilgrimage deep within this purgatory to trod upon their ancestors; in their footsteps, on their unmarked graves, and the faint irradiated traces of their ultimate- and ultimately nameless- Violation.

_'Tonight, I discover if I shall ever find purpose,_' Spock thinks for the ninth time since departure. Despite the rather pointless nature of the repetition (such an obvious fact is, after all, no mantra), it still helps him sit straight-backed and stoic atop his unevenly plodding _dzharel_. Already he has been in the saddle 46.31 hours, and he is ill-accustomed to it. In deference to the nature of the Forge- considered at once blasphemous and sacrosanct- only this mode of transportation is permitted, astride animals bred for this purpose alone. These descendants of long-ago pack animals tolerate their Vulcan riders well given that they are also unaccustomed to the situation, being otherwise housed on comfortable preserves. All exploitation of lesser beings is forbidden, not merely their culling for meat. It is only the fact of their pre-Reform domestication that makes the Vulcan people stewards of these creatures, as with sehlats. Despite the lengthy and entwined history of their two species, the relationship is now somewhat uneasy. They are no longer quite used to one another, and the myriad scents of Forge make it clear to the caravan beasts that they are no longer within their sanctuary. At least their skittishness has diminished now they they are firmly in the depths of the Forge. During the initial stages of the journey, both rider and _dzharel_ alike kept careful watch against _mor'gril_ and _le-matya_, but there is no need at present. Nothing lives and nothing grows in the inner reaches of this desert. The sky, quiet at the moment, is torn so easily by sudden fluctuations in magnetic fields, coriolis effect, and associated large-scale wind patterns that even the airspace- avoided by native avians- is closed to both flyer and atmospheric shuttle.

Spock's mount is patient and well-tempered, but the saddle is hard and balance difficult to maintain. He has been employing basic pain meditation to obviate the distress since the first sundown of their journey, but his training has not yet reached the second stage. During the day, Eridani A- a pleasant and quotidian environmental factor in ShiKahr- beats down upon the caravan with all the relentlessness he remembers from the _kahs-wan_, scathing little fingers which seek to eliminate even the slightest respite from heat. At night, the breaths of both beasts and riders are visible, billowing wisps of white like exotic Terran clouds, which are made of water vapor and not merely dust. The stars too are constant in their hard brilliance, largely unblinking due to the thinner atmosphere, outlining the crematory sands with their feeble, outdated light.

If the Forge is a place of half-forgotten trespass, it is also an expression of the present Vulcan psyche. Once truly in the midst of the great cavity, the horizon line becomes a stark delineation in all directions, abstemious and stern. Even the ponderous peaks of Mount Seleya, now to the procession's back, are from this vantage point naught but a wrinkle in the otherwise perfect symmetry. The landscape has but one adornment, and it too adheres to the strictures of geometry and spartan aesthetics. Since the afternoon of the very first day, a great foreshortened tower has been rising higher and higher, splitting the place where the sand meets the sky at a perfect right angle. Its onyx stones are so polished their gleam is painful even when it appears merely a needle in the distance. Another sight from his _kahs-wan_ though, since the ritual was undertaken at the outer reaches of the Forge, it was never more than a glimmering warning to mark the wrong direction. Setting off as they did from ShiKahr, their party in fact passed through the area of Spock's ordeal; inhospitable, possibly fatal, but not the outright death sentence the of the inner Forge itself.

And if there stood a distant way from the track a little cairn of laboriously gathered stones, only some of which had fallen in the intervening years, Spock pretended not to notice.  
It was the wind which caused his eyes

(_he has human eyes, they look sad-_)

to prickle, that is all.

The tower, their destination, is also a type of cairn. Millions of gigantic slabs, ebony and obsidian and night-blasted andesite hewn so perfectly they fit together without mortar. Despite its perfect angles and unforgiving rectilineal nature, there hovers about the site some vague anthropomorphism- repugnant to post-Reform Vulcans, and therefore studiously ignored. It is one thing to depict ancestors within dim cathedrals of museums, archives, and clan halls, but quite another to tolerate an icon so enormous being given a facsimile of life. The megalithic construction has no face, no features to enforce the notion; still, it is omnipresent sentinel in the apotheosis of deserts, and it is betrayed by its name. The Watcher of Watchers, a separate and eons old entity. Poised above the wavering desert, it seems the very stylus which drew the landscape into being.  
And, in a way, it is.

_'This comes down to us, unchanged, from the beginning.'_ T'Pau herself had said, undertaking the ancient chant prior to their departure. _It is the Vulcan heart- the Vulcan soul.'_

The health of the caravan necessitates swift travel, and their schedule has been further facilitated by the weather- atypically calm for this season. Perspective and steady pace render the Watcher of Watchers (sometimes also called _K'lek Tel-alep_, though it is generally not spoken of in prosaic context at all) thicker now, its contrast against the sky more striking with each hoof-beat. The eye may now discern details, begin to comprehend the sheer number of megalithic slabs which have gone into the site's construction. They will reach the cyclopean base by sundown of this day, as is customary. During the novitiate, Spock will be permitted one sip of water, his first since the beginning of the pilgrimage, though he will not break the fast he began four days prior to that. As with the _kahs-wan_, he must be ritually pure and entirely mindful of the disciplines he has mastered, for he carries with him an artifact- a treasure, almost- few Vulcans are fortunate to bring back from their Ordeal.

For three years, now, it has rested in an urn within the family ComuSafe, awaiting the appropriate occasion. Now that same vessel is tucked carefully in Spock's saddlebag, a reassuring (_vindicating_) weight against his thigh. There is no shame, surely, when a scientist values proof, even if it is proof he may venture where many full-blooded Vulcans never go.

'_**Tonight**_,' he thinks, without excitement or trepidation, or any emphasis at all save the concrete nature of the fact. The goal. Such focus is permissible as a pivot for pain meditation, if not for potential accomplishment or gratification. Yet, deep within the dark, unplumbed depths of self, a trace of more naive desire persists. An echo of an echo. He learned swiftly enough, even in the scant early days his mother was permitted to hold him balanced on her hip, to hide the unanswered emanations of his outcast's soul. If only he could have been expelled from the womb knowing this subterfuge was necessary! Such would have saved him a great deal of trouble. It is an internal well, one he has had no choice save to seal over, though others still occasionally detect hints of its existence. And, like their desert ancestors in pursuit of actual water, his teachers hunt the metaphorical wellspring of Spock's difference

(_otherness_)

relentlessly. He must be Vulcan, without and within. Thus, he views the two possible outcomes of this present journey with painfully constructed dispassion. If he should fail, he will be linked with T'Pring, or some other daughter of a noble house, should she surpass him and achieve her own victory in the Watcher's ritual. Only emerging from the desert with his prize has thus far spared him- both of them- the careful matching that is the safeguard against adulthood's whispered madness. If he succeeds... he dare not think it, dare not approach the word he holds within by even the faintest degree of association. He calls the ultimate treasure he seeks 'purpose' instead of 'happiness'.  
He is ten standard years of age.

They say his Vulcan blood is thin but, in this one rare instance, the other candidates- the pure children of _T'Khasi_\- in the party are likely considering their potential future contentment, just the same as he. Spock calculated this probability (83.76%, error margin +/- .02) the moment they set out, having at last a sample size larger than only himself (omitted, to avoid skewing the data), T'Pring, and Solan. The three of them represent ShiKahr, emerging as they have not only from the _kahs-wan_, but also with the highest scores in the various academic, psychological, and telepathic tests which mark the preadolescent phase of education. The past three years of their lives have been dedicated to ensuring they are worthy of being Chosen and well-equipped to face this final hurdle. Another from the capital, Sohvan, also scored quite high, but it was well known that he emerged from the desert empty handed, and so there way never any hope for him. The other nine children presently in the caravan constitute the remaining contribution for the entire planet. Twelve total, from a global population of two billion, tasked now with the last of those ancient rituals sanctified and re-imagined by Surak to ensure the survival of their species. The original reason for the ceremony, a thing of mingled mysticism and scientific awe, has not been lost or removed, as the great teacher knew it could not be. It is instead obscured, yet still set in the collective consciousness as firmly as the fever that bids their race return to the red sands at the appointed time. As immutably as the dark stone towards which the procession rides.

The other candidates do not welcome his presence- of that, Spock is certain beyond the need for calculation. A part of him, already a connoisseur of hypocrisies, a collector of instances in which action has not matched the strictures espoused and IDIC has been but a thin patina, catalogues this dispassionately. A greater portion of his being

(_stubbornly_)

tenaciously proceeds and participates in the pantomime, pretending with the rest that the added scrutiny he is subjected to has a rational foundation. It was _logical_ to question the entire situation when he emerged from his _kahs-wan_ not merely alive, but Chosen. Sarek, a generation prior, had also been one such rarity, and never before had there been repeated selection so closely within a family line. The union of his parents was once more examined- though carefully, to avoid any slight of honor against other couples bonded in the manner of the Watcher's ritual. Sarek and the Lady Amanda were the first Vulcan/Human joining to result from the ancient rite, but they were far from the first interspecies bonding. The Council was uncertain if Spock should participate, when the injection of genetic diversity which was partly the rituals purpose had surely already been satisfied with the inclusion of the Terran female.

(_They- and Spock is still young enough to relegate his elders to the classification of some untrustworthy and only half-understood phylum- do all they can to avoid saying *her* name. Their pretense to fastidiousness is given lie by the linguistic acrobatics, the way they philosophically contort themselves around her very existence. They are like the primal Vulcans of old, who did not speak the name of the Death Goddess for fear of attracting her notice._)

This controversy has mulled its dispassionate turmoil for the intervening two years since Spock emerged from the periphery of the Forge with his handful of priceless feldspar. The very existence of this rare find has reassured him- in times he was low enough

(_weak enough_)

to need reassurance- and it will shortly foretell if he is to be part of something more, or if the assertion of his fellows that he is

(_an anomaly, an error_)

a singularity has been accurate all this time.

He is here now, though, even if his age-mates ride apart from him and he must occasionally restraint himself from looking back towards where his mother- in concession to her human frailty- is carried in a covered palanquin. A flick of his gaze towards the other candidates reveals a coterie of impassive faces no more emotive than stone, all eyes toward the horizon, all similar phials of sand safely harnessed in saddle-bags and seemingly ignored. Placidity, prosperity, peace: these are the fortunes a Vulcan may wish, for one another or for themselves. Sensible goals, free of whimsy, or the rapacious desire for impossibilities which once drove their kind. 'Happiness' is far too emotive a word. Yet perhaps the idea lingers, even in his full-blooded companions, for just this instance. Rendered safe because it is not spoken, or even directly thought of.  
And, in the interests of accuracy, there is one emotive word still frequently uttered in the modern tongue; one thing in which a Vulcan is permitted to take delight.  
_Taluhk nash-veh k'dular._ I cherish thee.

Whether he alone carries an illicit shard of hope, painful but dear as a golden needle over which skin has protectively regrown, Spock will never be certain. No one may truly know the mind of another without the deepest of melds and, besides, an experiment may sometimes be unintentionally altered by the very act of observation. The uncertainty which exists within a particle itself before any measurement is taken, the differing behaviors of light. There are also, he is quick to note, electrons which maintain their association even after separation. Quantum entanglement is a fundamental aspect of transporter physics- the ability to draw the whole together from only a sundered part.

Before the sunrises tomorrow, the Watcher of Watchers will provide all the necessary evidence. The young pilgrims will know not only if there exists for them a bondmate of ultimate compatibility, but also the identity of that being.  
The perfect twin of their _katra_.

Illogically but inescapably, he sometimes suspects he may not have a katra at all. Spock fears, in those moments of greatest privacy, that he is beset only with a damning human soul.

The deepest, most elemental secret of the Vulcan race is shrouded in myth and metaphor, concealed already within the larger and already taboo subject of Pon Farr. Despite this cultural prohibition and the natural reticence of their species, the most efficacious protection of this ultimate truth is also the most simplistic.  
Even if it were laid out- bare, banal, and clearly stated- for the entire Federation... no one would believe it.

Spock himself is struggling with the verity of the situation, now that the Watcher of Watchers stands before him in all its eldritch glory, outlined in the brief but fuming brilliance that is a Vulcan sunset. From base to pinnacle, smooth and unbroken, it draws the eye upward hundreds of storeys higher than any modern architect would dare to build. The Way brought their people back from the brink of extinction, banishing superstition with the blasting clarity of logic. No more would signs and auguries, flawed mortal interpretation of natural cosmic operation such as comets of solar flares, dictate bloodshed or the trajectory of personal destinies.  
Silent, patient as the grave of billions it symbolizes, the Watcher's smooth obsidian surface seems to wink with the last of the setting sun, as if to say,  
_'Except...'_

Poetic and completely irrelevant anthropomorphisms aside, Spock is having a difficult time focusing on the appropriate middle distance during this brief 'welcoming' ceremony, especially given the necessity of keeping his inner eyelids closed. Standing at loose parade rest while the Watcher's single guardian priestess administers to each candidate in turn, he knows it would be unseemly to stare, no matter the exotic nature of the anachronism, the setting, and all that must take place here. Moreover, he is aware of his mother's presence amongst the small audience behind him- of how her step faltered, just once, as she descended from the covered palanquin, pale and shimmering as her body wasted water in vain attempt to alleviate the heat. The desert cools rapidly once the sun is set; it may be that she is chilled (solicitude for one's elders is hardly illogical), nor is he certain there is any water left in the single canteen she was permitted for the journey.  
They will not allow her to drink from the well here, though whether that is for her own safety of the sake of ritual 'purity', Spock cannot confidently say.

Discouraged from attending at all, the Lady Amanda has been pitting her will against that of the High Council practically from the moment her son came out of the desert and returned to her (entirely metaphorical) arms. The matter of his _kahs-wan_ had caused a great deal of turmoil in her, some of which was undoubtably justified given the perilous environment in which he would spend his ten lonely, weaponless days. It was a matter of concern even for fully Vulcan parents, though they ameliorated any inappropriate sentimental investment in the outcome and focused entirely on making sure their children were prepared. Though she never once protested against the rite of passage, Spock sensed her unique distress all the same, for she is rather like an Andorian _xi'ohsul_, an instrument of unbreakable blown crystal which owes its enchanting tones to that same highly sensitive material. With these, whole symphonies have been composed for execution by a single performer, such is the response to the slightest touch or vibration. In this same way, he is attuned to the delicate shifts in her internal 'weather', though he very rarely understands them or their cause.

His father's suggestion- tantamount to an order- that he be fully Vulcan naturally entails he must look on her disordered being with indifferent compassion, setting her aside with other infantile things. Spock cannot bring himself to do this, though he is unable- perhaps incapable?- of reaching out to her either. Instead he tries, without violating Tu-Surak, to provide for at least some of her nebulous and ephemeral needs. It is like having charge of a delicate, exotic, and ultimately unknown plant. No one has asked him to assume this responsibility, of course, and he knows for a fact she considers 'protector' one of her chief functions as a mother. In the eyes of society, the Lady Amanda's welfare is solely the concern of her bondmate, a fact reinforced by the complete legal impotence forced on her family after she was taken from Earth. If it were known that Spock has the temerity to question his father's care, let alone the extent of this doubt, it would be shocking indeed. Almost a Challenge. Spock himself recognizes its impudence and lack of evidentiary merit, yet the criticism remains. Even if only half-articulated within his own mind, it is still the first wedge between father and son.  
It will not be the last.

As the ancient cast-iridium ladle is passed down the line of initiates, each child struggling for impassivity with varying degrees of success, Spock remembers to be grateful for his mother's exclusion from the ritual- in this instance. He has been warned that the single sip he is about to take from the tower's well will make his body ill for days hence, even given the low-level trance techniques he may use to hasten the purging of impurities. The ancient Vulcan crime, the Violation of all natural law, has poisoned everything in the heart of the Forge, no less fatal for the thousands of years since lapsed. He must taste of it- and suffer the consequences- to indicate his understanding, his acceptance of guilt and obligation to recompense even his far-flung generation has inherited.

They will be gone from this place before sunrise. It is not safe to linger. If the pace and strict time table of the caravan's journey were not enough to communicate the peril, the spavined form of the priestess-adept illustrates the point more than sufficiently. Closure of his _tvi-bezhun-wein_ limits peripheral vision somewhat but, now that she has drawn closer, Spock can study her without turning his head. Her hand is perfectly steady as she proffers the vessel, but the strong bone and muscle are encased in flesh that is heavily blemished and prematurely limp. The preponderance of ritual platinum and tungsten plating in her vestments may help slow the more spurious effects of radiation, but the overall protection is negligible in the long term. Certainly, the geometric metalwork fails to draw the eye away from the garish sores which decorate her form. Her face, too, must be marked with the cost of her honored and exacting task, for it is obscured above the lips by a half-mask of jasper. Ornately carved and alarmingly precise in its mimicry of a true face, the faintly translucent stone still allows for disturbing vermillion shadows beneath its mildly russet surface. Such an impartial expression is the Vulcan ideal, but there can be no doubt she achieved the organic equivalent long before its carved facsimile became necessary. Even with the affectation, two large black sores are visible on cheek and jawbone- the latter of which is open- throwing the white discoloration of her hair into even more vivid contrast. She is young by his race's standards, not yet seventy, but Spock estimates she has less than five years of functionality remaining. No holy cleric vouchsafed to the Watcher of Watchers lasts more than a decade as steward.  
An illogical waste of life, some might say. Yet, in this one aspect of Vulcan culture, there is little logic to be found.

The overall effect of this willing and sanctioned sacrifice is quite shocking. She seems the personification of their planet's seemingly endless bloody past- its superstitions, bloodlust, and emotional psychosis. A deliberate insult to modern, post-Reform fastidiousness, both physical and mental, and Spock is not surprised to note within himself some traces of instinctive revulsion. Every aspect of this endeavor, from the moment T'Pau blessed them for their journey across the sands of old, has been carefully designed to stir and test the ancient drives. Stimuli to provoke response, response measured... to what end? Because his entire life has been a test in one manner or another, Spock does not concern himself overmuch with the question. He is, instead, obscurely reassured to find he is not the only one upon whom the subconscious cues and semiotics are exerting pressure.

Beside him, T'Pring accepts her allotted swallow daintily, but her typical grace is marred by an obvious desire to avoid even the remote possibility of contact with any of the priestess' garb or person as the ladle is passed between them. Spock does better, tempo and motion measured to perfect indifference as the tang of well water slides over his tongue. In the high, milky polish of the mask, he can see a faint if distorted reflection of the onlookers. His mother stands directly behind him- masked as well, though for an entirely different reason. Having only one set of lids to protect her eyes, the Lady Amanda wears a vizor of plasiglass, faintly blue in hue and semiopaque due to its anti-radiation lacquer. Its similarity to the priestess' raiment is glancing at best, but the juxtaposition still strikes him as distasteful and intense. In the next moment, he is able to dismiss the inward shudder. He has been aware of the disparate nature of his mother's lifespan since he began grasping simple language; she has stated repeatedly that she does not wish him to dwell on it, and she certainly would not want him to do so now. He suspects she is being used against him, though obviously without her knowledge.  
This is hardly a new consideration.

While not _Kolinahru_, each successive servant of the Watcher must be naturally gifted in _kash-nohv_. Once selected at birth from the rota of Houses, each is further trained in the disciplines of the Adepts-that sole surviving fane of what was once a rigorous order of telepathic warrior-sages. Though thoroughly demilitarized, Adepts are still masters of the most subtle mental pressures, using intonation, semiotics, and even minute gestures to manipulate the vestigial emotions of other Vulcans. They are Vulcan's _de facto_ law enforcement, though they are rarely needed, and are planet-bound save for special dispensation from the Council. The Adepts make other species _intensely_ uncomfortable, and the ease with which they subtly dominate a discussion or even an auditorium filled with individuals less self-aware than they is astonishing. This reputation extends to the farthest reaches of the Alpha Quadrant, and they are part of the reason Vulcans are so revered- and almost feared- throughout the Federation. It is said on other worlds that Adepts can drive any sentient being mad if they so desire, without ever extending a physical touch or telepathic tendril. Not true, of course, but it is... illogical to waste time dismissing or dispelling the fanciful hyperboles of those largely uninterested in the truth.  
Useful, too, to let it stand.

The priestess will work this minute attrition against Spock- against all the children- here, now. She has likely already commenced the subversion, and he cannot afford to be distracted by unreasoning, visceral instinct and symbolism.  
This, after all, is only the beginning of the trial.

As he was the last to drink, Spock will be the first to ender the aspirant's passage, with T'Pring directly behind him. Regardless of the probationary contract between their clans, his lower instinctual processes- what humans might call his triune brain- still identify her primarily as another strong psychic force, and therefore a threat. While he has been subconsciously regulating these ancient impulses since he could toddle, he remains alert to any unwanted stirrings of particular strength so they may be obviated through meditation and application of mind rules. He finds the thought of leaving his back to her less than optimal and, upon reflection, sees no flaw in the logic of this particular atavistic response. As yet unlinked due to their potential for a higher bond, Spock has never the less experienced brief mental contact with T'Pring. There is one sole matter in which they are in accord, and it is this: the Elders are most respectfully but egregiously in error as to their supposed compatibility.

Well he knows the potential outcome T'Pring finds most desirable in her journey to the Watcher. There is one already paramount in her thoughts- a mate of _pudvel-tor_-who is considered the most favorable scenario, but anyone who is not Spock will do. He cannot fault her, given his own aversion to their suggested union. Unseemly, this reluctance to submit to the Clan's wishes; he has been chastised for it. House of Surak he may be, but he should be mindful of the 'disadvantages' any potential bondmate would be forced to tolerate in him. A flawed fire opal still has value, but no honest merchant would set a price that did not acknowledge the undesirable inclusions. What strikes him as anomalous and unreasonable is T'Pring's objection to his very presence on this trek. She has opined- as loudly as is permissible- that his qualification as Chosen devalues her own, that it stains the sanctity of the entire process. (Is this not too close to actual animosity? Have her teachers addressed this with her? He has been told such queries are unacceptable- if he focuses on correcting the errors within his own being, he will be too busy to mind the faults of others.)

Thus, there may be a minute trace of personal pride in Spock's bearing as he meets the gaze of the Watcher's steward. Those eyes- rummy, blighted by petechiae and premature cataracts- are as passionless as the desert, mired voids behind both the mask she wears and the mask that is her face. She raises her entire arm, a single finger pointing as an insistent signpost towards the portal he must enter.

Her thoughts strike his mind with a blast of cold such as he has never physically known, blessedly brief but agonizing. It is a flash which freezes every iota of moisture in flesh, leaving it to crumble under the slightest pressure.

_'Do you know fear? Granted that which is most precious, are you capable of honoring it- of _protecting_ it, and accepting its protection in return?'_

"Fear is an impulse any rational being may, with appropriate effort, override," Spock says, aloud for the benefit of the onlookers. He is confident in the recitation, if not precisely in its execution, though he doubts the subtle waver of his voice carries further than his present judge.

The youthful crone transmits broad acknowledgement along with the slightest of nods, but says nothing. He must answer the second question, however, and that has no formulaic response. Swiftly, but with utter certainty and veracity, he speaks. "'Parted from me, never parted'; I would sooner cleave through my own being than fail to shield my _telsu_."

He hardly recalls the inspiration that compelled these words, but the priestess must find them adequate, for one icy blade carves _PASS, THEN_ into his mind.

Having just espoused the ephemeral nature of fear in the face of logic, he must now face the narrow aperture and demonstrate. The adults have been ushered away towards the main entrance, at least eliminating the temptation to look back. The portal is barely larger than the lancet window favored in ancient fortresses, filled with darkness so absolute he must guide himself with both hands along the claustrophobic walls. While tall enough to accommodate an grown Vulcan, the width of the passageway does not even allow him to fully stretch out his arms. At first, the brickwork is smooth to the touch and the construction fairly prosaic, despite its ritual import. Gradually, however, the linear interlocking of stone gives way to what feels like an endlessly curving spiral, growing narrower all the while. T'Pring should also be in the tunnel by now, though there is no sound to indicate her presence. Is there anyone behind him at all? It comes to him suddenly that the absence of sound encompasses more than merely ambient noise; the silence is stifling, unnatural. He cannot even hear himself breathing.

The passageway must circumnavigate the outer layers of the Watcher, for it has already gone on far too long and curved far too tightly to be accommodated any other way. The spacial relation of the design is fluid, almost _slippery_, and at one point the darkness seems to perpetrate the illusion that the _walls_ are now beneath his feet. The curvature has become simultaneously extreme and like that of the planet, so minute as to imperceptible- either that, or his state of disequilibrium has reached a point of interfering with proprioception. The contradiction is uncomfortable- it makes his skin crawl. The surfaces are no longer uniform, degenerating from geometric order into surfaces embossed with irregular designs. Each step forward increases the complexity of these bas reliefs, which quickly become so elaborate his questing fingers can not longer assist in visualization. Then, increasing so subtly he does not at first quite register it, a marginal sort of illumination returns. Shapes begin to protrude from the stone, bathed in their own intrinsic phosphorescence.

It is not _quite_ light, however. In optics, the 'color' black is the absence of light; yet here, Spock finds his eyes itching even beneath their protective inner lids as he struggles to see in what can only be described as an electric ebon/violet. The obstacles in his path are now clearly visible as sculptures, shapes portrayed as though frozen in the process of phasing through the walls. He narrowly avoids physically starting when he realizes these are heads. _Faces_. The visages are Vulcanoid, but they cannot possibly _be_ Vulcan. They are like caricatures, grotesquely contorted in emotional extremes surely none of his race would ever allow. The attitudes of fear and anguish, the degenerate rictus of battle-lust and anger, are surely beyond even what natural physiology would allow.  
It is _obscene_.

Though his visual perception is now in a range just below that of natural twilight, Spock cannot avoid touching these effigies, which at once mock both the pride of his people and the very concept of 'art'. They thrust out from all angles, not merely heads but now also arms, hands, the occasional foot or leg. He must maneuver around them to make his way, ducking and shimmying, and one point crawling on his belly to get past them. Their raw mineral composition seems roughly analogous to a milky quartz, flecked with striations of gold which, in any other circumstance, would be fascinating to examine as a possible source of the phosphorescence. As it stands, Spock can only shudder as the life-sized figures grow progressively more disfigured and depraved. The pretense of light is as deceptive as spatial relation in this place, casting drifting shadows of disquieting almost-color. Here, the viridian of blood, the red of dunes, an offensive yellow that speaks somehow of fire burning in filth. The fingers are rendered to appear rotting as they reach out blindly, whole faces blighted, hard crystal bone piercing forth unnaturally from crystal flesh.

Utterly unwillingly, Spock thinks of the small, red-eyed totem so readily provided to Vulcan children. Not a gift or a bauble, but a tool given to assist the novice in meditation, customarily bequeathed as soon as the brain has developed the necessary areas for focus. The life-sized carved blasphemies he is presently faced with bear not the slightest resemblance to the innocuous aids of his early years, yet it seems now they are all- each unwholesome figure- shudderingly imbued in the lines he spent hours studying to center himself. The practice supposedly honors the Vulcan personification of curiosity and the search for knowledge, the graven images as old as meditation itself. His reaction now is so deep and involuntary that there can be only one conclusion: certain subtle, mnemonic visual cues must somehow have been worked into that standardized little idol, completely subliminal horrors rendered inert. As certain viruses may linger dormant in the body for years, so too have these impressions been implanted in the deepest part of the subconscious.

It is dizzying to consider the deliberate, careful planning which must have gone into this... the only appropriate word Spock can think of is 'conspiracy'. Even then, he must use the Standard term, for no equivalent label for such large deceptive enterprise has survived from ancient Golic. The small statues are often called Little Watchers. The name is damningly apt, for **watch** they do, emissaries of those who instituted Vulcan's Reform, in the dim days when Surak's teachings could not be guaranteed to take hold. They reach out, insidious and seemingly mundane, to work their will unknown. Without consent. He is disconcerted- almost repulsed- to find these associations continue to work upon him despite his new awareness, activating a species wide-phobia and memory in the most automatic and reflexive mental functions. How many generations of Vulcan children have sat before their totems, seeking the serenity of logic, never suspecting the failsafe being implanted without their consent? It is like discovering explosive ordinance concealed in ones intestines.

Suddenly, Spock feels very weak. The glucose in his veins seems to evaporate, his time sense vanishing as though it never existed at all. Lungs burning, he catches himself gnawing on the inside of his cheek so hard that blood bathes his tongue. It's as though he hasn't eaten in months instead of days. There is no room to turn around in the tunnel now, no way to turn back, though _something_ communicates very firmly and directly to his brain that retreat is still viable. He can give up, he can embrace the shame of failure rather than the horror he presently endures... the horror that is to come. He shrinks from the touch of this not-psyche, a presence that is as difficult to credit as it is utterly alien. It occurs to him briefly that it must be another illusion, a by-product of his disorientation, but he knows as soon as the thought forms that this cannot be. The presence is too far beyond the scope of his understanding, and he is certain he should wish to die on the spot if his mind were ever capable of conjuring anything as foreign and antithetical to life itself as _this_. Like the _le-matya_ which slew his only friend, this unknown entity has drawn up upon Spock with silent, impersonal violence- yet even the most rabid animal would have more vigor and investment in its own existence. A hurtling, impartial engine of destruction, it implacably insists that, should he be sensible and flee, he will not encounter T'Pring or anyone else during his coward's marathon. They are all here together, the twelve child-initiates, and they are utterly alone. Two contradictory states at once.

Spock's only company now is this cold observer, a sentience of such perfect self-awareness that it fights to avoid consciousness a sleeper resists ejection from the haven of oblivion. It resents the presence of organic things- of Vulcans- which it perceives both almost as an infestation and as a source of its own abstract selfhood. It did not ask to be created, hating the burden of absolute and unvarnished reality, wanting only to fulfill its purpose so it may return to its dreams.

_('Nocturnal visions, controlled solely by the subconscious, are an ineffective method of integrating quotidian events.' It is an old drill, from early in Spock's schooling. 'Proper meditation is both more objective and efficient, deprecating this automatic function almost entirely...'_)

/Ahh, but we all dreamed once, do you see? There are races that may dream yet, but we are banished. Take you pride in logic? It is our salvation and our penance. The Way is narrow, narrow, and you have trod its wicked edge yourself./ They are not words- Spock could not bear it if they were- but thought-shapes of the most abstract nature, the mime-language of a five dimensional being trying to pass a message to a rudimentary phenotype. A transmission which has no meaning to the sender and no memory associated with it, save long-ago programming which dictates it _must_ transmit. In the instant he questions-**What IS this?** \- the answer appears whole in his mind.

/We who are rational beings were once beasts- then less than beasts because, in our hubris, we told ourselves we were the pinnacle of creation. That we owed nothing to each other, to the future or to the past. Stars bowed, electrons trembled; we summoned mockeries of life, built artificial minds and filled them to the brim with all things quantifiable. With knowledge, but knowledge does not wisdom make./

Shuddering under this onslaught, Spock ceases moving entirely. The instinct to panic is overwhelming: epinephrine and norepinephrine flood past his stress modulators, hormones merge with neural activity to hold his body rigid and ready for flight. His eyes sting in that peculiar way of theirs, a symptom he has yet to find a satisfactory explanation for in any medical database he has access to. He suspects his eyes- ah, by all the old gods, his _human_ eyes!- are attempting to cry but lack complete tear ducts to accomplish this. The blood in his mouth is now dribbling down his chin, but he does not cry out. Every muscle in his form is focused simply on enduring from one moment to the next.

More thought-shapes: lurid, perverse. Images which are fundamentally _wrong_, yet so vivid he can smell the urine of the elderly dying in the streets, the acrid scent of hair burning in funerary pyres the size of city blocks. Violations of men and women- by one another, by weapons, by machines. Prowling steel forms- at once alive and utterly inanimate- trample infants beneath their feet; parents devour their first-born to prove fanatic loyalty; dull-eyed scientists concoct weapons of nucleotide and RNA, watching their victims disintegrate alive with a faint air of boredom.

/We were made to crawl on our bellies through the filth and the ash. Evolution is not a straight line, but a wave. What rises too fast will inevitably fall./

The scenes become static-laden as Spock's brain resists accepting them, for they are truly lunatic now. Before, he questioned the veracity of what he was being presented with as a form of self-protection. Now, he is wordlessly _informed_ that the next scenes never existed- but they could. They _could_ because the abomination buried here is, in fact, that powerful. Capable of warping reality. He looks on stones bursting in the desert to spew forth birds already engaged in auto-cannibalism; lovers embrace about a two edged-sword that slices into each even as they rut relentlessly together; chittering _things_ dance amidst ruined, waste-strew cities and eat viscous fungi-flowers from the crumbling walls.  
It is not rational, _not logical_, _not logical_...

/**PRECISELY**./

In a flash of insight more intuitive than anything else, Spock grasps a portion of the lesson so ruthlessly outlined here. Logic is a soothing balm; safe, antiseptic, largely unconcerned with the future or the past. Static, stagnant. _Life_ sprang from the chaos of the universe, from a singularity prior to which no state may be imagined, and there will never be any logic in chaos. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations- of amino acids and nucleotides, of alkali metals and noble gases, isotopes stable and otherwise. From Aldebaran shell-mouths to the Terran okapi, from slim Andorians to Klingons laden with muscle and ridges of keratin. Life may tend to evolve towards certain basic efficient formats, but there is an element of the Random which cannot be denied.  
The Way has saved the people of Vulcan, but at a price.

Surak himself compared his teachings to a path, a clear delineation from which any offshoot or variance spells only ruin. Vulcans had known hatred, which is self-replicating. They turned to logic, which itself begets only more logic, each time more divorced from compassion. It is- and Spock is so astonished to realize this that he actually gasps- _affection_ (even in this extreme, he cannot quite think the word 'love'), connection that breeds the cultural mutation necessary for successful evolution in sentient beings. It can result in malfunctions, yes- fear and hate and vengeance- but it produces also creativity, art, intuition, faith. Irrational forgiveness, loyalty, the protectiveness of a parent who lays their life down for their child, of a lover who will suffer a thousand times over rather than allow their mate to endure half that. It unites opposites: his mother and father.

Alone in the pit, the very nadir of hope, Spock understands that the Watcher- and all its attendant pairings and rituals- is Surak's way of maintaining the one random element necessary to keep their people alive. Not just an assurance of existence, the continued preservation that logic dictates, but _life_ that changes and adapts and is not afraid of the struggle to survive. This cannot be achieved via unions of logic. Call it destiny, compatibility, a merging of minds- these are simply labels for the mystery that is the quivering viscera of the universe. The chain of reasoning seems like a noose, for what good does such knowledge do him now? He can never be clean or whole if he is heir to even half the atrocities he's seen, even in the hundred thousandth generation. He told the priestess-adept he knew fear, but he did not.  
Not fear such as this, in the face of certain failure. Victory now would be impossible and, worse still, meaningless.

_'You don't believe that, and neither do I.'_ It's such a rapid and unceremonious impression, utterly unexpected but perfectly timed. Not true articulate words, not even akin to the terrible thought-shapes which have been assaulting him, this 'voice' comes from _within_ Spock. But if is not _of_ him. To no longer be alone with the anomalous torturer is a gift, but Spock is so astonished by this beautiful incongruity now present that all else slips from his consideration. It is a bright thing, small and delicate as the most specialized cell, all gold and full of welcome, of decency and wonder to deny the hideous images he has been subjected to. Not a telepathic communication in the traditional sense, oh no. This is no melding of rational minds, for Spock has been deliberately driven as far from rationality as any post-Reform Vulcan can get. Nor is this new and actual being consciously aware of Spock. It may even be- how astonishing!- presently dreaming. He can tell only that it is not Vulcan, and not inherently possessed of psionic gifts. It need be none of these things, nothing other than its precious self, which the hybrid Vulcan now approaches with an adoration just short of religious awe.

How has he lived in ignorance of this connection? It is like truly observing one's heart beat for the first time, something vital but unrecognized in the obliviousness of infancy.

_'How did you **find** me?'_

_'I have always been here.'_

He does not know who asks and who answers. The facts, the sense of kinship, are the same regardless.

_'You almost make me believe in miracles.'_

_'I have been, and always shall be, your friend.'_

Friend... brother, lover.  
_**T'hy'la.**_

It is the word Spock has carried with him since the first moment he read it, a curious creature on unsteady legs whose fine motor control did not quite match the precision of his rapidly maturing mind. There had been a tome- rare, not meant for young hands or young minds, but left out when his mother was called away from her work to answer an interstellar comm. Father is a scientist and a diplomat, but _she_ is a linguist. A lover, therefore, of words and intonation and vagaries of meaning. As Sarek's bondmate, she had an opportunity few outworlders could hope for, and her unerring instinct for the core of any culture she studied led her quickly enough to Vulcan's few examples of literature. While not precisely forbidden, the handful of novels which survived from the latter millennium of Tu-Surak (before logic crystalized entirely and fiction was abandoned altogether) are considered indecent for all but the most mentally and morally stalwart of readers. They mention customs, vestiges of lesser time, and dress parables as imagined narratives. One tells of female warriors who defied their clans, invoking _kal-if-fee_ that they might take up the Way. Another follows the exploits of two former mortal enemies whose near-fatal confrontation becomes instead an unexpected bonding of great mental compatibility and brotherhood. Struggle and connection- a search for kinship away from one's kin. Sarek scolded his son and confiscated the book upon discovery (if he attempted to chastise his wife as well, it was not without vociferous rebuttal), but it was too late. Spock's mother was right in her frequent assertion: words have power.

To name a thing is to help draw it up into reality, to create from the abyss of inchoate thought. A single word had hinted to Spock that his instinctive search was perhaps not an aberration or sign of weakness. _T'hy'la_; the touch now in his mind, a perfect aurulent grain of sand. The manner of its discovery reminds Spock of Terran oysters that form and conceal pearls. _'My consciousness was birthed entwined with this!'_ he thinks, and the only sound he makes in that abhorrent passageway is actually a laugh, because he has conceived an ornate metaphor and will not repent of it. His consciousness, the thing called 'Spock', was created to enfold this dear, impossible kernel, to hold it close. He curls around it the way he hunched over his meager fire during the cold nights of _kahs-wan_. This ember is so strong, and yet so vulnerable! He must shelter it, but he also cannot suffocate it. It will take a great deal of care to balance these impulses.

/As emotion must be balanced with logic./ The thought-shape is passionless, conveying something that had no direct meaning to the entity transmitting it. A dull, repetitive and involuntary motion, as the legs of a dead animal will sometimes kick when galvanized by electricity. Spock has no mind for the horror of this beyond keeping the repellant not-intelligence away from the bond he has discovered. His own survival at this point is incidental- he must move forward, because he cannot leave this _k'hat'n'dlawa_, this other self, alone.

All of these events transpire in what is only objectively a few moments, and only for nanoseconds does Spock truly experience the plurality of bonded consciousness, the most intimate and ultimately vulnerable connection possible between two beings. Ancient fragments of poetry refer to this as the I/we of psyches sundered at the beginning of time. It is a homecoming, the return of an element to its most stable isotope. Ironically, the union is too powerful to be maintained any longer than that, the constituent minds being too young and inexperienced to fully wield the potency of all they can accomplish together. This brief taste is too much, it will never be enough, but it is sufficient for the lesson and the transformation Surak intended the Watcher to impart.

Entangled and aching, Spock and his bondmate are also one in intent and tenacity. They dislike defeat, never surrendering to anything completely, reluctantly pulling back when necessary and holding onto hidden pieces of themselves while pretending- with varying degrees of success- compliance to their elders and betters. The I/we of this bonding is rooted deeply in a stubborn determination to be...  
(_More than just another 'Fleet brat, more than a mind and drive withering away in the quagmire of small-town complacency and the affectionate absence of his duty-conscious parents. ... Parent, singular, now that one has made 'ultimate sacrifice'- the strange rite of 'never-coming-home-again'._)  
(_More than an irregularity, a hybrid born of esoteric bonding practices and a knife's edge balance of cultures, a creature beset by half-named yearnings and the dubious evaluations of his peers._)  
_**themselves**_.

_'This is not the hill we die on.'_  
Again, the impression is not truly one of words, and the foreign context/associations make even the notion behind it almost incomprehensible to Spock. He *feels* the meaning, though, knows he will have the strength to move forward even against the clinical hostility of the thing concealed within the Watcher's walls.

Spock begins to push himself up from his abject sprawl, the very set and attitude of his form and musculature changing. Imbued in him is the purpose he longed for during the trek across the Forge, but also humility.  
It is fitting then that, in the brief moment he is on his knees, Spock cradles close the beloved he has discovered and allows his katra- or his soul, it no longer matters which- to howl its ecstasy and its triumph.

.

.

* * *

Glossary/Notes:  
[+] _Tu-Surak_\- the way of Surak.  
[+] _tevun_\- a Vulcan year.  
[+] _dzharel_\- a horse-like horned animal.  
[+] _tvi-bezhun-wein_\- the inner or nictating membrane covering the Vulcan eye to protect the eye from sun or sand.  
[+] _pudvel-tor_\- chosen, preference. All definitions from the Vulcan Language Dictionary. Feedback is logical, and used to keep the muse from chewing on the furniture. ;-) No sehlats were harmed in the making of this fic.


End file.
